


Fireside Chats

by Neftzer_nettlestonenell



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29738067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neftzer_nettlestonenell/pseuds/Neftzer_nettlestonenell
Summary: Djaq and the gang, around the fire.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Fireside Chats

It was the same fire of any night in Sherwood. 

The April days might be tenable, but to Djaq (and, if what his running commentary had anything to say about it, Much), the forest evenings and nights were too cool, too chill for comfort.

Even so, the nightly fire was her favorite time of any day in Malik-Ric’s jolly old England. Maybe it was because the dark beyond the fire ring and those outlaws positioned around it made it easy for her to occasionally imagine herself home—or at least more homeward than this shire of Robin’s. Maybe it was because she had studied—with her father—so long beside fires, around fires—and harnessing fires, that the fire itself felt of an old, unchangeable friend.

And yet, maybe it was simply that it was the most intimate time of any day. The cool meant outlaws doubled or tripled up beside one another, seeking the warmth of numbers. The fire and darkness meant a tendency for things to be shared that would have never passed in daylight hours when they were Robin’s Men. His strong, cunning, sure-of-themselves motley gang of outlaws, the tales of which the Sheriff surely hoped were being told to frighten village children.

Simultaneously, she felt both Allan and Will inhale to either side of her, as though each were preparing to speak—Allan no doubt to spin a purpleish yarn, as was easily his favorite pastime around the fire. But for Will to speak—this was not so common, and it seemed that Allan, as well as she, wished to know what the woodworker had to say, as Allan smoothly morphed his inhale into a yawn, and made no move to express himself further.

Will, never one to move too quickly, now cleared his throat, and tossed something across the fire’s flames to Robin, wrapped in Marian’s arms on the other side. Djaq craned her neck as much as she dared without disrupting the cozy middle which she occupied with Will to one side and Allan the other—though her cluster of outlaws was eons from enjoying the familiarity Robin, reclining into Marian, did.

She wanted very much to see what object it was that Will had thrown and Robin had caught, but the night and the fire stole the clarity from her vision.

“What’s this, then?” Robin half-chuckled, rubbing at the item, hardly larger than his hand. Marian’s hand came up to touch it as well.

“Will, it’s beautiful,” she said. “Truly.”

“It’s a year,” Will said, in his determined way, as though if he did not finish his sentence, someone would cut in and interrupt him—though no one showed any sign of doing so. “Since the hanging where you saved us.”

The fire did not cool in response to his declaration, but it did seem, for several long moments as though it quieted its crackle and spark.

“Thank you.”

Robin looked considered, something Djaq knew he rarely let others see of him, but which she felt deeply affected by whenever she witnessed it.

“Thing is, Will,” Robin said, “I’ve my own rescuer to thank for saving me that day,” his somber delivery predictably did not last, “and a particular hairpin, whose mate—”

Djaq saw his arm tense as Marian squeezed it slightly too tight for comfort.

Much, who Djaq had thought had nodded off over by John piped up. “Did I ever tell you about the time Robin saved fifteen templars—including myself in the Holy Land? It was—”

“ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT you. He saved him, she saved him we’ve all saved each other and been saved and none of us would be here without all this saving. Will SOMEONE sing a song or spin a yarn—not YOU, Much—something to entertain? We’re at wasting a fine blaze if we turn melancholy when there’s still yet a few drops of October’s ale to be drunk.”

“Shut up, Allan,” said Djaq. “For now. I want to hear the tale again. The cancelled Hanging of the Locksley Four. Today, it is my favorite story.”

“Mind you,” began Allan, to the groan of every outlaw present.

“It was a greyish day,” Marian began.

“The Sheriff’s dungeons were filled,” said John.

“Among them, three Locksley villagers arrested for stealing flour,” added Will.

“Four,” said Much. “Four villagers claiming to be from Locksley.”

Allan inhaled sharply, but Robin overspoke what everyone present knew Allan was about to add. “The Earl of Huntingdon,” Robin continued the tale, “newly returned from Crusade, had not slept that night—”

Djaq smiled into the fire at the voices of the outlaws, her friends. Her family, telling the story of how they came to be. Will would tell her later what he had crafted for Robin as a remembrance. Until then, she was here among the characters of the story. Until then, she was content.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for My Gang to Me, April 26th


End file.
